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It’s a TWO MARX weekend all around Sorry, folks, but I did not particularly like any of the new movies, out this weekend. So far this summer, there haven’t been many good movies.

* “Step Up Revolution“: This is the latest–I think the fourth installment–of the “Step Up” movies. You don’t have to see any of the others to know what’s going on in this one. In fact, most of them are independent of each other in cast and, um, “plot” (if you can call it that).

This ridiculous movie had the same old, tired, hackneyed standby left-wing Hollywood narrative: evil, White, wealthy capitalist businessman wants to buy up the indigenous people’s slums and kick them out for a development. In this case, the White dude is a hotel magnate from Connecticut (Peter Gallagher) who just bought Miami’s Dimont Hotel (really, Miami Beach’s Eden Roc Hotel, a terrific hotel at which I used to stay often with my family for Passover, and later on business; it’s got the greatest hotel gym I’ve ever seen–loved working out, there). He’s buying up a decayed strip of land occupied by Cubans’ businesses, including a bar, so that he can evict them and develop the land into skyscrapers and shopping. But his daughter, an aspiring dancer, joins a group of the Cubans and their friends in a flash mob, called “The Mob,” who mob streets, restaurants, museums, and other places with cool dance routines, which they videotape and post on YouTube in an online contest to win money and fame. They are also using “The Mob” to fight the developer and his zoning bid to develop the land.

I’m long past tired of “flash mobs.” They’re silly, and I wouldn’t want my commute to a meeting or my restaurant business sabotaged by a group of selfish kids whose quest for fame and YouTube notoriety is more important than the rest of us conducting our lives with some semblance of order. This movie glorifies that selfishness and disruption. Also, I doubt highly that, after the first flash mob scene in the movie–in which the dancers block traffic at an entire intersection for a good deal of time, the FBI or local police wouldn’t subpoena the IP address of the video’s owner from YouTube and immediately arrest “The Mob.” It’s not like they wore masks to conceal their identities. I was also surprised that producers didn’t pull one of the scenes, in which “The Mob” invades the “evil” developers’ cocktail party, dressed in all black with gas masks, dropping gas canisters on the ground, similar to the Batman shooter’s behavior at last Friday’s “Dark Man Rises” massacre. That was eerie.

While the movie had some cool dancing (if you are under 40 and like urban-style, hip-hop-esque movements and music), overall the movie is a warmed over headache and a waste of time. Silly describes it best.

TWO MARXES

Watch the trailer . . .

* “The Watch“: This is the movie that was originally called, “Neighborhood Watch,” but the title was changed because of the Trayvon Martin killing by Neighborhood Watch participant, George Zimmerman. But had they really wanted to appropriately change the title, they’d have called it, “Don’t Watch.” Though it has a lot of funny lines, the plot is stupid, and a movie filled with holes and nothingness has both of those filled in with filth, nudity, and dumb penis and sexual jokes and situations. Ben Stiller plays a manager of a local Costco store. His employee is mysteriously murdered, and so he forms a neighborhood watch group with assorted losers from the neighborhood, including Vince Vaughn and Jonah Hill (who are normally far more funny). But instead of finding criminals, they soon learn that their neighborhood is invaded by aliens, whom they must stop from taking over. Yaaaawn. This tried to be both a comedy and a sci-fi alien movie, and it failed miserably at both. Mindless time banditry.

TWO MARXES

Watch the trailer . . .

* “Trishna“: This depressing movie is the anti-“Slumdog Millionaire” (read my review), with the same female lead, Freida Pinto. It’s supposed to be a modern-day, Indian version of “Tess of the D’Urbervilles.” But if you want to experience Tess, you should read that book or watch one of its movie incarnations.

A beautiful young woman (Pinto) living in poverty with her family in rural India meets a spoiled, wealthy young Indian who is British and has come to India to run his father’s hotel. After Pinto’s father has an accident that keeps him from earning a living, the Indian Brit offers her a job at the hotel, which she accepts. Her entire family depends on the money she sends home. She quits after a one-night stand with the Indian Brit and soon has an abortion. But, eventually, she abandons her family and a new job in a factory to get back together with the Indian Brit for a series of ups and downs. It is a life of abuse and never what she wishes. The guy is a lout (as in most movies). And it can only end badly.

21 Responses

Jeez. I’d hate to have sit through these three losers…they seem like the worst movies EVER and I hate most American films.

I finally saw “Mao’s Last Dancer” and “Warrior”. DS was so correct…I loved both of them! Great movies and her reviews of them are great and worth reading again.

I also finally saw “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”…the Yank version. I liked it just a bit more than what DS said but she was basically spot-on with her review. I didn’t mind it but it wasn’t exactly good or even interesting and waaaaaaay too long!

Since Hollywood is Anti-American, I will not pay to see any of hate garbage they put out, with maybe one exception a year.

Since Hollywood wants to re-distribute everyone else’s money and support Obama, I suggest that they should have no problem with anyone seeing a bootleg dvd of their movies. (Personally, I can’t since I am an attorney sworn to uphold the law, but I will not discourage anyone else from obtaining good bootleg dvds. I am sure that Alec Baldwin, Penn, Spielberg, and all of the other lefties in Hollywood won’t mind.

Thanks for the reviews Debbie because I really don’t have money to waste on stupid movies. Hollyweird has been going down the tubes for years in the quality of their flicks. Surely as I’m sitting here typing they will continue with their usual practices. Making crap that people don’t want to watch and supporting libdunce democrats like Obama.

Cities are begging for big developers to build anything which might contribute to the local economy. They fork over huge subsidies and tax breaks and compete with each other for every last cent of investment. Don’t the producers of these movies understand that many of those dancing kids might have found work in all those newly-built malls, offices, and residential complexes?

This is doubly strange since Hollywood feeds on the same subsidies as those evil developers.

P.A is sooooo right…and I never liked sitcoms to begin with. Don’t even like the stooooopid word…Sit-Coms.
It’s like the word ‘Snacks’…just more useless garbage to feed the masses.

touche’! J E.G: if Hollywood wants us to play ‘Robin Hood’ why should they get to skip through the forest untouched. They’ve been ripping us off for ages and they’re part of the filthy rich nobility too. Fair is Fair, eye for an eye and all that goes with it.

I am so sick of anti-American, anti-capitalist Hollywood trash, like these movies this weekend.

I wish a Republican Congress and president would pass a “Big Hollywood” corporate tax. The movie companies could be slammed with an 80% tax on their profits. Surely, they wouldn’t object, since they despise capitalism and always want higher taxes.

Debbie I saw the Batman movie. First of all thanks for the bathroom break alert. I got a big diet coke and guzzled it down right away, then as per plan went to the men’s room midway through the flick during a slow moment, while Batman was being taken to Bane’s old prison. I got a free refill for my $4.75 soda and dashed back to my fancy, balcony level reserved $20 seat which comes with free pocorn and valet parking. The poor masses huddled below in the cheap seats couldn’t even see me. I miscalculated a bit on my bladder capacity but did just barely hang on to the end before dashing off to the rest room again. It was a very good movie, I didn’t think it glorified OWS or burglary, and I liked the ending too.

Based on an objective reading of history, not a whole lot to disagree with here. I have often wondered why FDR’s love affair with Stalin, as well as the infestation of our government after the war with communist sympathizers is glossed over by Debbie.

To single out Poland is absurd, and—I suspect—was swallowed, quite uncritically—by Debbie as she was growing up.

There has always been antisemitism in Europe, dating back to the Romans. Obviously, I am not justifying this, but—again—to single out the Poles, when the French are probably the worst offenders based on their cooperation with the Nazis and now the Muslims is a joke.

If more people saw movies instead of simply taking someone else’s word, they would discover how absurd the “Hollywood vs. America” meme really is. (Michael Medved’s “definitive” book of two decades ago is as bad today as it was then.) Last week I saw “The Amazing Spider-Man.” I fail to see how the film is a fount of anti-Americanism.

I have no problem with movie reviews, but they’re opinions, sports fans, not facts.

Last night I rented “Tinker, Tailer, Soldier, Spy” a movie the Debbie disliked. I found it facinating. In fact, I have seen many movies that Debbie disliked and enjoyed them including over years that I have been reading this board, “Black Swan”, “Blue Valentine”, and “21 Jump Street” (Yes, it was a bit juvenile but still enjoyable). It’s not a liberal vs. consertative issue. It’s an issue of finding out for yourself.